Journalhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/Mon, 02 Jul 2018 18:37:15 +0000en-USSquarespace V5 Site Server v5.13.504-302 (http://www.squarespace.com)squarespace/uiCohttps://feedburner.google.comPoetry BookPoetry bookbeautifuldreamerThu, 05 Apr 2018 18:22:30 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/tMM3U2At7JI/poetry-book.html120454:1077205:36054116<p>Growing up as the abused redheaded stepchild who had a burning passion for writing, I never thought I'd some day put my own truth into written words. My step-dad mocked my writing and I froze. I wrote fiction instead. I couldn't afford the price it would have cost to stick to the truth. But that was then, this is now.</p>
<p>Now, as the grown up version of that little girl self, I can afford all kinds of things. It took one kind of courage to stifle my truest self and endure the endless molestings and rapes back then. Today it takes another kind of courage to tell the world what was done to me in words that are as true as I can make them. I decided somewhere along the line that my step-dad wasn't going to have the last word on who I am. I didn't belong to him then, and I don't now.</p>
<p>I've published a little book of truths--that's how I think of them, truths, rather than poems. They may or may not <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/brightwood-street-chronicles-revised-deb-rhodes/1126391974?ean=9781388774493"><span class="full-image-float-left ssNonEditable"><span><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/blog.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1522953957366" alt="" /></span></span></a>explode into someone's life and make some kind of difference. I hope they do. I hope someone reads them and feels the beginning of an emotional earthquake that shakes them out of their futile efforts to pretend that their own abuses as a child didn't happen, or that they did happen but <em>didn't matter</em>. Because the reality is that we're all in this together, all of us, whether or not we want to be. As part of the human race, what touches one touches everyone. If you suffered as I did from any kind of abuse I'm outraged on your behalf. My words don't have to sell a million copies or make some best seller list, they have only to bring light into darkness.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/brightwood-street-chronicles-revised-deb-rhodes/1126391974?ean=9781388774493"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>This slim volume </strong></span></a>is one way of letting my light shine into the darkness. See, is what these poems say to those who have ears to hear, this is how bad it got. This is the evil that permeated my childhood. But see also: I've lived to tell about it. I've lived long enough to choose to begin to heal. And if I can, you can, because there is enough light and healing to go around. <em>More than enough</em>.</p>
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<p>PS&nbsp; <a href="http://www.blurb.com/b?ebook=660739"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Click here</strong></span></a> for the ebook version.</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/tMM3U2At7JI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-36054116.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2018/4/5/poetry-book.htmlAfter GriefFriendshipGrief processbeautifuldreamerWed, 24 May 2017 01:47:49 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/V8GQZ5Zxjt0/after-grief.html120454:1077205:35915270<p>A friend once told me, after I'd lost a twenty-something year friendship, that I definitely needed to grieve my loss. I needed to figure out what I missed most about that friendship and ask God to replace those things in my life.</p>
<p>This was nearly ten years ago, and in all this time I've barely allowed myself to miss this person, let alone grieve her loss. And then today I found an old email account I haven't accessed in about seven years, and found many, many emails I'd saved from people who are no longer in my life.</p>
<p>Once upon a time (ten years ago now) I began this blog. Within a year I had a little DID support system going made up of fellow multiples I'd met online. We visited one another's blogs, left comments, gave each other a bad time, made bad jokes, exchanged DID technical knowledge and, in general, supported one another. Someone was always having a bad time of it, we were all always having a bad time of it. But there were others who were going through the same fears and depressions, or who had gone through them in the past and knew just what to say to throw a bit of light our way.</p>
<p>Finding these emails gave me so many mixed emotions. I teared up immediately, stricken with the loss of the individuals who for years had been part of my life in cyberspace. I miss that keenly. There is now no one in my life (except for one individual who was married to a multiple) with whom I can discuss the confusing, convoluted life of a multiple. No one. I'm not sure what happened to everyone. Oh, I know what happened in some cases but with others there wasn't any breaking point or closure, they simply drifted off and disappeared as if I'd dreamed them up. Some, I found out later, had quit blogging and no one knew what became of them.</p>
<p>None of us can go backwards and mostly I think that's a good thing. But sometimes when I allow myself to feel some of my losses I wish that I could. I wish I had the anticipation every morning of booting up my computer with a mug of hot coffee in hand, and reading the latest comments on my blog or the latest posts from someone in my little circle. I miss the fun. I miss how quickly we all leapt to the defense of anyone who needed it, or rushed to provide some form of comfort to one who was raw and hurting. These are not things to take lightly, and I didn't. I don't.</p>
<p>I needed that sense of camaraderie and I still do, but now I don't know where to find it. Either the world of DID cyberspace has drastically changed or I've lost my knack for finding those kindred souls who once saw me through so many hard times.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Yes, I do need to grieve. I have a lifetime of grieving to do but the thing no one ever tells me is what exactly am I to do once I've done with it?</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/V8GQZ5Zxjt0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35915270.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2017/5/23/after-grief.htmlSo You've Decided to HealChildhood abuseHealingMental healthkindred spiritsbeautifuldreamerWed, 28 Sep 2016 16:47:16 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/lcBqHQECils/so-youve-decided-to-heal.html120454:1077205:35780935<p>Dear Brave Soul,</p>
<p>Don't laugh, I call you this because, even though I don't know you, I know the amount of courage it took you to face up to the fact that you need to heal. And then from there to decide, okay, I want to do this. I want to heal. You've perhaps come to the conclusion, as I did years ago, that time itself does nothing but age you. It doesn't heal, it simply moves you physically further from the season of your abusive childhood, offering you no healing properties in the process.</p>
<p>And so here you stand (or slump, or lie facedown on the floor, whimpering) with a steadily growing conviction (that you need healing) morphing into a coherent resolution (I want to begin the healing process). The good news is, you've taken the first step which will set all kinds of things in motion. The bad news is, you've taken the first step which will set all kinds of things in motion.</p>
<p>Your decision to begin a journey of recovery from your traumatic childhood<span class="full-image-float-left ssNonEditable"><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/woman-1006100_960_720.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1475086923704" alt="" /></span>&nbsp;is going to stir up all the memories you've been trying to shut out for years, or decades. You will wonder why you ever thought dealing with your childhood was such a great idea. No one told you it would be this painful! What's the point, anyhow, if all you have to look forward to is more pain?</p>
<p>The point is that by facing and confronting the memories your pain will begin to be manageable. Some days it won't seem like it because some days you will feel raw, and everything around you will feel like salt in your open wounds. But not every day will be like this. Like everyone else, you will have your good days and your bad days. Some days and weeks it will seem as if your entire universe revolves around your healing, and you're right because it does, at least initially. In the beginning of the journey you're about to embark on, you will necessarily have to focus on you and everything that made you who you are. You can't accomplish this without looking back from where you've come. It's unavoidable. But you won't have to live simultaneously in the present and the past forever, at least not to such an extreme as is required in your early season of healing.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Life will seem not to change much, perhaps for a long while. You must expect this so that you can be tender with yourself (or, if you're a multiple, your selves). You must believe, even in the face of no such tangible evidence, that one day you're going to come into your own. You mustn't crack a whip over your own head in a frenzy to force yourself to arrive there before you're ready. Your abuser did that when he introduced you to sexuality on his timetable. You mustn't continue what he started. Forcing yourself to move faster than you are able to along your journey of recovery and healing will stall you out. Healing takes time; it can't be rushed or forced.&nbsp;</p>
<p>You will have nights when every cunning demon in the universe seems to be whispering your name in your ear like a contemptuous taunt, nights when sleep is like an offended friend who has turned his back on you in disgust, and refuses to return. Nights when you recall with clarity every detail of your abuser: the color of his hair, the pores of his sweaty face, his favorite brand of aftershave which you can smell again there in the night, alone. You will convince yourself that this is all you have to look forward to for the rest of your life: these night time horror fests when bits and pieces of your childhood come up like vomit, and you powerless to stop it.</p>
<p>In spite of this, you mustn't allow yourself to give up your resolution to recover. Though this resolution may not seem like much, <strong>it's the strongest thing you own</strong>. No one can snatch it from you, it can only be freely surrendered. You may relapse and throw in the towel on an especially hard day, but don't let that rob you of your future. There is a certain rhythm to this process of recovery. You might take one step forward and then fall back five, but that's okay, it's just part of the process and not to be taken as a permanent failure. You're not a failure, no matter how often you stumble. You are stronger than you think: you've already survived the worst thing that ever happened to you!</p>
<p>I've been dealing with my own recovery for close to 15 years, and I can honestly say I never thought I'd be where I am today. And yet there are moments when I despair of ever being totally free of my past. Though it doesn't loom over me in the way it once did, I must face the fact that we can only choose how to deal with our childhoods. We are never quite free of them, though the hold they've had on us can be loosened to such an extent that we can live without remembering the brunt of the abuse every minute of every day. Once we've got some mileage under us along the road of recovery we can choose what to focus on. We can choose, and make little adjustments along the way, because, well, because why not? We're in charge of our lives now!</p>
<p>Some days I just sense that I need to address certain issues. For me that usually means I need to deal with my DID system, something I don't like to do. But for every day like that there are many, many more where I barely think of what was done to me in the first place that made my many personalities necessary in order to survive.</p>
<p>As you head out into the first steps of your oh-so-brave journey, with nothing more than your wobbly resolve to guide you, hear my blessing over you from one overcomer to another:</p>
<p>May you find the footprints of those who have gone before you to help guide your way, and encourage you in the heat of the day and the cold of the night.</p>
<p>May you gift yourself with all the time in the world you need for your journey, remembering it is the journey itself that brings the healing you so yearn for, for there is no destination at which you will magically arrive.</p>
<p>May you allow yourself to be the intelligent, sensitive person you've always been beneath the heavy, dreary weight of trauma and abuse.</p>
<p><span >May you find like-minded souls for friendship, nurturing and as a source of encouragement along the way.</span></p>
<p><span >And, may you some day find yourself on the other side of your worst struggles and fears, standing strong as you cheer others on, away from the past of their victimization into their true place under the sun.</span></p>
<p><span >All my best,</span></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/lcBqHQECils" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35780935.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/9/28/so-youve-decided-to-heal.htmlPassing the TorchDIDHealingMental healthbeautifuldreamerMon, 05 Sep 2016 06:02:18 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/OAMkiuKkEFk/passing-the-torch.html120454:1077205:35766213<p>Sometimes I'm weary of the whole DID thing. If it were simply a lifestyle I decided to try out to see if I liked it I would have said long before this,<span style="font-size: 12px;">&nbsp;"Uh, thanks but no thanks."&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>Recently I read <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Minds of Billy Milligan</span>. I found this true account of multiplicity quite intriguing, and that's another thing I don't much care for, that I can read about DID in reference to someone else and even admire that person for persevering and knowing so much about their system. But when it's me and my system? I get exasperated. Impatient. Angry. I don't see one single thing to admire about my own management of a group of insiders I barely know. They are strangers to me, I'm barely aware of their existence most of the time. Reading the Billy Milligan story gave me a bad case of DID envy. I mean, everyone but me (or so it seems) who lives with this disorder knows their system inside and out. Why don't I know mine? Is it because I put up resistance? Are they deliberately in hiding from me, and if so why? If they are here to help then why play hide-and-seek?</p>
<p>Another thing that gripes me is that I'm turning 63 next month and here I am still plodding along not dealing with something I should be dealing with. I've never figured out why this is so hard for me. I can't get to the bottom of it, it's all a murky mystery. I've a sinking feeling it's never going to get any better than this. As Jack Nicolson's character said, "What if this is as good as it gets?" Well it probably is. I mean if I haven't figured this out by now what are the odds I will at some later date when my health is failing, and my memory too?</p>
<p>This is one of those posts that have no real resolution. I didn't think when I began that by the time I reached the end I'd have arrived at any conclusions. So in that respect I'm not disappointed. I'm slightly relieved that I took the time to write this; I'd forgotten how good it feels to blog about my troubles. Whether or not anyone is reading it feels good to write it.</p>
<p><span >I spent nearly the entire day working on the revision of my poetry book. I don't mention DID in these poems, but they were written about the time in my childhood when I was mauled and raped by my abuser on a regular basis. I'm at the point of editing and so of necessity I must read every word, something I absolutely don't relish. Hard to write such poetry in the first place and double hard to read it later at different stages in your life and not feel as if it's all whining. I swear at one point I wanted to yell, "Just get over it already!"</span></p>
<p><span >All kinds of mixed up thoughts ran through my mind while editing. In addition to "just get over it" I found myself thinking, rather defensively, that if I hadn't been raped for 8 years I wouldn't have had to write such poetry in the first place, and wouldn't now be having to edit it in the second place. And then I thought how writing about such violence is supposed to be healing, and sharing your sufferings in the form of writing can be like passing the torch to someone whose pathway has been ill-lit and scary.</span></p>
<p><span >So. Here I am passing the torch. I do this in the poetry I so despised today. Forging ahead with the editing even though everything and everyone inside of me was protesting, is me handing that torch over. Everytime I make no explanations or excuses for my often quirky behavior to someone who doesn't know its source, I'm passing on the torch. Because how easy it would be (and has been for much of my life) to laugh along with someone else about what a goof I am, how I can't do anything right and my memory has more holes than swiss cheese, etc. <strong>I must make a choice </strong>whenever I am met with another's humor or scorn at my ineptness at this whole business of living. I can hide inside my shell, laugh along with them, make up something that sounds halfway credible...or I can do none of those things. Instead, I can take one for the team. Not just <strong>my</strong> unique little team of insiders but also in the bigger sense of the whole DID community, however small or expansive that might be. If I take one for my team then I'm not adding to the misinformation that's already out there circulating about us. I'm not encouraging the stigma attached to this mental illness by scoffing at it or making myself the butt of a joke.</span></p>
<p><span >Passing the torch and taking one for the team--these are two things I can do even though I don't understand the world inside of me. And for now that will have to be enough.</span></p>
<p><span ><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/beauty%20name.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1470852415835" alt="" /></span></p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/OAMkiuKkEFk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35766213.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/9/4/passing-the-torch.htmlSlogging Through My BlogBlog postsDIDsufferingbeautifuldreamerWed, 10 Aug 2016 17:57:02 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/irQGYbbEg-M/slogging-through-my-blog.html120454:1077205:35750891<p>I've had it in mind for years to publish my blog posts in book form. Maybe I should have done so years ago when I first had this bright idea. I began yesterday cutting and pasting blog posts into Word documents, in fact spent the entire day on it and am only up to May 2007! I began blogging in 2006, so the task before me is monumental. Fortunately, not every blog post is worth including; I'm attempting to choose the cream of the crop.</p>
<p>One thing I didn't consider at the beginning of this project is that in order to do this I'm going to have to read through every post to see if it's something I want to include. After spending the entire day on this yesterday I emerged from the work in a sort of trance, caught between the past of 2006-2007, and my life today.</p>
<p>I had to remind myself why I thought this was a good idea. I recalled wanting to do my bit in demystifying DID. I wanted people to understand that it's not as Hollywood so often portrays it. Maybe what I should have asked myself is, does anyone care? Will publishing volumes of my blog posts really make any kind of a difference in anyone's life? And there's the rub: how can I possibly know that?</p>
<p>I want my sufferings to be of some use in this world. Maybe someone will read them and realize they are not alone in their own struggle to live as a multiple in a singleton society. Maybe someone will read my words and understand a spouse or sibling or friend just a little better.</p>
<p>I want to proceed with this project because I think that it has to matter to someone, somewhere. But at the same time the last thing I want to do is to slog back through that mucky past. To be done with it once and for all, wouldn't that be something?</p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/irQGYbbEg-M" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35750891.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/8/10/slogging-through-my-blog.htmlSeeking the Old Paths (Still)beautifuldreamerWed, 27 Jul 2016 18:14:34 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/bkXmJRWxgDM/seeking-the-old-paths-still.html120454:1077205:35742111<p>(This is a post from 2008 which, for some reason, was saved in a file deep into my computer. When I came across it I barely remembered writing it, but it resonated with me. In fact, I feel just as I did when I wrote this though I haven't made any attempts to do anything about my longing to begin attending church. Because I spent decades in what ended up being a cult, I've been skittish about attending any kind of organized religious services.)</p>
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<p><em>I miss attending church</em>. I've no idea where that thought comes from, but its sudden wistfulness is worth noting. Usually when I find myself unaccountably yearning for something it's a sign that something is missing in my life.</p>
<p>Growing up, church attendance was a given. Because I learned to love it when I was still living under my dad's wing, I put up no fuss when my new stepdad insisted Mom take us each week. I barely blinked an eye at the oddity of worshipping on the seventh day of the week, instead of on Sunday as I'd been accustomed to. The thing is, I needed this: needed the peaceful atmosphere of the sanctuary as&nbsp; every head bowed in prayer; needed the hauntingly beautiful hymns (which contained within their melodies a wealth of theology.)</p>
<p>Sometimes I studied the frail wrinkled neck in the pew ahead of me, intrigued by the whiter than snow baby-fine hair escaping from a carefully skewered bun and oh! something constricted inside of me to think that I was studying the landscape of a dear old saint's neck. Perhaps this was an individual who had loved the Lord all of her days--just imagine! I couldn't even fathom walking an entire lifetime with God. What must that be like?</p>
<p>My hair will doubtless never be baby-fine, no matter how old I get, and I swear I'll never wear it in a bun. As I contemplate this growing desire to be within that old familiar atmosphere--<em>on holy ground</em>--I'm surprised to realize that my own walk with God is 50 years old. 50 years!</p>
<p>If someone were to ask me what it's like to walk with Him that long, I could only say it's&nbsp; like this. It's sorrow and grieving and (a sometimes aggravating) joy popping up at the most incongruous times. It's laughter and deep wistfulness, and begging prayers and prayers whispered hotly out of a devastating sense of shame. It's fumbling like the world's biggest stumble-bum while blurting out asinine words which are instantly regretted.</p>
<p>Grace and sin and glory and unholy hands touching me and sunsets so gorgeous they make my throat hurt, and cruelty so ugly it makes my whole body throb with shame and anger.</p>
<p>A constant sense of wanting something unnamable, and seeking it within the glass-stained confines of the building whose mysteries surely weren't meant for the likes of me--but still I braved my weekly entrance, certain that some word of Scripture would embrace me, even me, in ways that nothing else ever did, assuring me of my place in the Creator's master plan.</p>
<p><em>I miss attending church</em>. Now that I have my car back I can go whenever I want to. The deliciousness of this realization washes over me, compels me to look up local churches on the Internet.</p>
<p>I will go, I will return back to what was once a weekly solace, a necessary solace for a redheaded stepchild who only wanted to be loved and valued.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/bkXmJRWxgDM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35742111.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/7/27/seeking-the-old-paths-still.htmlThe Deconstruction of Beautychildhood issuesbeautifuldreamerFri, 18 Mar 2016 20:37:46 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/ZpA9EfM4iMM/the-deconstruction-of-beauty.html120454:1077205:35639652<p>While searching in my bedroom closet the other day for a long misplaced book, I realized with sudden clarity that I've been living out of boxes for decades.</p>
<p>As I went through box after box, I thought how I couldn't do this anymore, couldn't spend hours lifting and sorting through boxes, not even knowing if I'd find what I was looking for. My old bones protest too much. And that's when it hit me for the first time that I've been doing this since I was about 16.</p>
<p>How does one develop such an odd habit? I suspect it comes from a deep insecurity, the insecurity of never knowing where you belong or, if you belong anywhere at all. This insecurity most likely also accounts for why I've moved over the years more than anyone I know. Maybe it made a certain kind of sense to keep everything I don't use on a daily basis boxed up: who knew when I'd be on the move again?</p>
<p>I want to be angry or indignant on my behalf, I mean that things happened to me to turn me into such a stumble bum. But I find that I just can't; the most emotion I can conjure up is a sense of tenderness for all the awkward stages of my becoming who I'm meant to be that have led me here, to a closet full of boxed up life.</p>
<p>This is another benefit to my mother's recent death. I feel more kindly towards the both of us, and it goes so deep I can't begin to understand a bit of it. When I would have a thought that normally results in anger towards her, I think, "Yeah, but she had such a horrible childhood." When I want to silently mock myself for not being perfect, I realize, "No one's perfect."</p>
<p>Those boxes stacked in my closet symbolize so much for me. They symbolize my life all shut up and compartmentalized. They symbolize my inability to put down roots in any one place because I've been too busy trying to outrun my childhood, and the shame of a mother who couldn't love me.</p>
<p>Most of all, they symbolize the depth of my stepfather's brainwashing, the constant mocking and disparagement that told me I didn't deserve to take up space or live a healthy life like others.</p>
<p>These boxes don't have to continue giving off these tired, worn-out messages. I can see them rather as one more challenge to be overcome. I've overcome so much in the 9 years I've been blogging that it makes my thoughts spin trying to keep some kind of tally. I can do this; I can let go of what I've outgrown because it's not healthy living like this, and I deserve a healthy life.</p>
<p>These boxes are mini-storage units (or let me be honest here, mini-prisons) I've willingly confined myself to as I've continued the deconstructing work on my soul that my abuser began back when I was a redheaded stepchild.</p>
<p>How silly they seem to me now, these bland brown boxes whose contents are not so much filled with treaures I can't bear to part with, but the no longer needed relics of my own destruction. I don't need these keepsakes to remind me of that House of Incest.</p>
<p>Isn't it fitting that I've kept them hidden away in closed up boxes, where no air gets in and no one can see from the outside what they contain?</p>
<p>My life feels as if it's in need of a good airing out. I sense a good old spring cleaning on the horizon!</p>
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<p>&nbsp;<span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable"><span><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/beauty name.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1458334797964" alt="" /></span></span></p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/ZpA9EfM4iMM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35639652.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/3/18/the-deconstruction-of-beauty.htmlMemorial DayForgivenessMom issuesbeautifuldreamerSun, 07 Feb 2016 06:06:09 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/X2PZS6CNGsA/memorial-day.html120454:1077205:35605096<p>Over the years I've posted about the pain of being alone while the rest of my family was at my sister's, enjoying a holiday visit with my mother, who was in town.</p>
<p>Today, as 3 of my sons left together to attend my mother's memorial service, I remembered. Remembered the shame of being the odd man out. Because that's what I was, right? Even if it might be said I did it to myself by not choosing reconciliation, still, it hurt to be the one left behind. Left behind, left out, left.</p>
<p>Yesterday, my brother, who has discussed our childhood with me endless times, shamed me for my decision to not attend the service. I was astounded that he even thought I'd consider going. He told me he was disappointed, and he didn't need to say it for me to know what he meant was, "I'm disappointed . . . in <em>you</em>."</p>
<p>I held my tongue. More than anything I held my tongue because I had gotten no sleep the night before, and was punch drunk. But as we ended the call, anger burned hot. What I would normally experience as hurt had turned into something else. I knew in that moment that, had I not been nearly woozy from lack of sleep, I would have told him exactly what I felt. My mom not even in the ground yet, and already I experienced this newfound sense of freedom to say exactly what I mean.</p>
<p>Oh, the tippy-toeing around I've done over the years! The decades I've spent protecting her!</p>
<p>When I consider that she is no longer living (an odd thought, to be sure), I realize the stupidity of having allowed myself to be under her thumb for so long. Even years after our estrangement, I felt under her thumb. I carried with me everywhere I went her condemning presence, her annoyance with me which was expressed by the lifting of her brows or the shuttering of her eyelids. The barely audible sigh or gasp to let me know I'd done something she thought stupid. And now she is nowhere, capable of nothing. Whatever her power or spell over me seems to have dissapated the moment I heard of her death.</p>
<p>Yes, I've been too nice all along, afraid to hurt the feelings of the woman who consorted with a monster in my destruction. What a waste of years, of time and energy. But could I have done it differently? No, I don't think so. Because of who I am this is how I needed to do things. This servitude to her opinion of me has brought me all the comfort of a hair shirt, but it was the only way I knew to live my life.</p>
<p>I never thought that the death of my mother would be a rebirth for me! I never expected it, but here it is: a gift I didn't even know I wanted. I've rattled the chains shackling me from time to time, but there was no passion behind the action because I never truly thought I would be free.</p>
<p>This is a memorial day I'd do well to never forget. On this day every year I hope I'll pause to remember the delicious sense of freedom that became mine today. It grieves me that my mother had to die before this could happen...but I'm not indulging in false guilt over it. One thing I'm noticing more every day is that since her death, I feel more kindly towards my mother. What I couldn't do while she still lived I may yet accomplish. I may be able to forgive.</p>
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<p>&nbsp;<span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable"><span><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/beauty name.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1456882254491" alt="" /></span></span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/X2PZS6CNGsA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35605096.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/2/6/memorial-day.htmlThe End of Surface ThingsMom issuesbeautifuldreamerThu, 04 Feb 2016 20:19:55 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/zoED1Ta6kUo/the-end-of-surface-things.html120454:1077205:35603065<p>This morning I awoke to the news, posted on Facebook, that my mother had died.</p>
<p>I suppose I'm too raw to be writing this, but here I go. Earlier when the tears I've begrudged myself since childhood burst forth, the thought occured to me that, of all my siblings, my grief is doubled. I must grieve the loss of someone who gave me life, and then grieve for the love she never gave me.</p>
<p>For all the decades since my early childhood, our family has survived on lies and distortions, on public nicities and filthy things swept under the carpet. For the first time since my 7th year I stand here, emotionally raw, and not caring who knows. No more surface niciites, is what I tell myself. Let the truth explode and fall where it may.</p>
<p>I know there are those who will assume I have no feelings about my mother's death because we were estranged for over 10 years. If anything, that estrangement makes the fact of her death nearly unbearable. No chance of resolution now. No more questions and half-truth answers. I'm set free by her death, yes, in some ways. In more ways than I'm sure I'm able to realize just now I am never to experience full freedom from the bondage of being the unloved daughter. How could I be? It's a testament to the primal need in all of us to bond with the one who gives us life that, in not having that bond, we suffer beyond human expression.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I'm not taking phone calls nor answering texts. I can't. If I speak of this, the death of my mother, I will not be able to keep myself together enough to get through the next minute. Even as I pull away, avoiding those who mean well, I think how stupid it is that I feel I must tend to my wounds alone, like an animal in the forest. But it's how I've gotten through my life, and too late to begin learning new ways now. Or too soon.</p>
<p>I would not have wanted my mother's death in exchange for my freedom. No part of me wished for her to die from the excruciating pain of colon cancer. Earlier I went on FB and posted a photo of me, when I was about 2, with my mother. I wrote her name and her date of birth and date of death, and then: RIP.</p>
<p>I felt I could do that much to honor her: acknowledge publicly her death.</p>
<p>Behind and next to and inside of everything I think is the whispered question, <em>But why couldn't she love me?</em></p>
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<p><em><span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable"><span><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/beauty%20name.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1454618286044" alt="" /></span></span><br /></em></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/zoED1Ta6kUo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35603065.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/2/4/the-end-of-surface-things.htmlFull DisclosureAbuseChildhoodFamilyforgivenessmother issuesbeautifuldreamerMon, 18 Jan 2016 18:52:47 +0000http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~3/tDNY-NDjM54/full-disclosure.html120454:1077205:35587415<p>I hadn't meant to ever post here again. For nearly 10 years I've blogged about my Dissociative Identity Disorder and, for the most part, enjoyed doing so. Or if not exactly enjoyed it, I got something out of it. This blog was my heart and soul, a sort of journal depicting my journey back through and then, hopefully, back out of my haunted childhood.</p>
<p>I'm done with it, is what I thought. Done with trying to make sense of senseless evil. Done with lamenting what happened to me, and what I never had or experienced because of years of sexual violence. No one (especially me) cares to hear it anymore, I decided. Enough, already.</p>
<p>In an unexpected roundabout way, I found myself on my blog just now. There was something I needed to check on and while doing so I noticed a comment awaiting my moderation. So of course I had to read it, being curious and all. So I read it, and responded, and then realized that I do need to say a bit more. I don't want to start blogging again with any regularity; I've moved on and, besides, I've got other websites going that need my attention. But the thing is, my mother moved to town about half a year ago. She lives just 10 minutes away with Sissyface. And, as a matter of fact, my mother is dying.</p>
<p>Just now I watched again the short video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjTOs1L3SBg"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Inside</strong></span></a> which shows what it's like inside the mind of DID. I watched it because I needed to. I needed to remind myself <span class="thumbnail-image-float-left ssNonEditable"><span><a href="javascript:showFullImage('/display/ShowImage?imageUrl=%2Fstorage%2F4cb29d_6593aa4c271c4899ac54754ef3740c4d.jpg_650.jpg%3F__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%3D1453145612472',650,974);"><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/thumbnails/1077204-26799670-thumbnail.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1453145612477" alt="" /></a></span></span>that this is what goes on in my brain, in spite of my refusing to think about all the clashing personalities residing there. I'm too good at denial, expert at hiding and burying things, like a dog burying a bone. Just like a dog's ratty old gnawed on bone, this won't stay buried; I'm digging it up because, well, my mother's dying. (There is some kind of a joke or symbolism here, speaking of bones. How often my mother used to dig her fingernail into my shoulder while crying, "I've got a bone to pick with you!")</p>
<p>I don't know what to do with this fact. I don't know how to feel. I'm angry much of the time at the thought of her wasting away from colon cancer. I'm not sure of the source of that anger, but probably it has to do with her slipping out of this world without having ever held herself accountable for anything.</p>
<p>I'm angry too that there are no death bed confessions of guilt. At least my stepdad did that much, called me up weeping and begging forgiveness. It's not even that I want my mother to ask my forgiveness, but if she doesn't then it confirms everything I've believed for so long: that she's not sorry one bit.</p>
<p>Maybe there is a part of me relishing in the knowledge of her physical sufferings, but if so I'm not aware of it. I don't take pleasure in the sufferings of others, regardless. I just don't. I can't. I know too well the familiar texture and weight of suffering and what it can do to the soul. So I don't enjoy my mother's process of dying. I simply wish that for once, just once in her life she could make full disclosure.</p>
<p>I know to wish this is foolish, childish even. <em>Why didn't you love me</em>? is really the basis for everything. I don't need to ask why she didn't protect me, not if she could tell me why she didn't love me. That would answer a whole lot of other questions. But she is taking everything I need to know with her to the grave, stingily holding them tightly to her chest like a seasoned poker player.</p>
<p>And then it's not even just about that. There's the keening sorrow that I never had a mother in any true sense of the word. I'm only beginning to get that beyond a surface level. I'm only beginning to realize the horror of being born to a woman who never mothered me. The things I've missed out on! The deep bond we never had because, because why? She couldn't love me? Wouldn't love me?</p>
<p>What do you do when the mother who never loved you is dying? <em>This is it</em>, is what I tell myself. <em>The only shot you get, your only mother. But</em>, comes my exasperated response,<em> but she was never a mother. </em>How much is that my fault?</p>
<p>The thing to do is keep on living my routine life. That's all I can do. When thoughts of my mother dying trouble me from time to time I will have to distract myself, for now is not the time to grieve her death.</p>
<p>I haven't even begun grieving her life . . .</p>
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<p><span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable"><span><img src="http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/storage/beauty%20name.png?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1453145177620" alt="" /></span></span>&nbsp;</p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/squarespace/uiCo/~4/tDNY-NDjM54" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>http://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/rss-comments-entry-35587415.xmlhttp://bdreamer.squarespace.com/journal/2016/1/18/full-disclosure.html